By: Ina Steiner

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Amazon.com released the following press release announcing first quarter earnings for 2012, you can view the full release with tables on the Amazon investor website. Amazon.com will host a conference call at 5 pm EST with analysts.

AMAZON.COM ANNOUNCES FIRST QUARTER SALES UP 34% TO $13.18 BILLION; 16 OF THE TOP 100 BESTSELLING TITLES ARE EXCLUSIVE TO THE KINDLE STORE

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2012.

Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 464 million on March 31, 2012, compared with 466 million a year ago. During the quarter, the Company repurchased 5.3 million shares, or $960 million, under its previously announced authorization to repurchase up to $2 billion of the Company's common stock.

Net sales increased 34% to $13.18 billion in the first quarter, compared with $9.86 billion in first quarter 2011. Excluding the $56 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales would have grown 34% compared with first quarter 2011.

Operating income was $192 million in the first quarter, compared with $322 million in first quarter 2011. The unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter on operating income was $4 million.

Net income decreased 35% to $130 million in the first quarter, or $0.28 per diluted share, compared with net income of $201 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, in first quarter 2011.

"I'm excited to announce that we now have more than 130,000 new, in-copyright books that are exclusive to the Kindle Store - you won't find them anywhere else. They include many of our top bestsellers - in fact, 16 of our top 100 bestselling titles are exclusive to our store," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "If you're an Amazon Prime member, you don't even need to buy these titles - you can borrow them for free - with no due dates - from our revolutionary Kindle Owners' Lending Library. The Kindle Owners' Lending Library is heavily used by Kindle owners, and it has extremely unusual features that both authors and customers love. Every time you borrow a book, the author gets paid - and we have an inexhaustible supply of each title so you never have to wait in a queue for the book you want. Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world by far, and I assure you we'll keep working hard so that the Kindle Store remains yet another reason to buy a Kindle!"

Highlights

Kindle Fire remains the #1 bestselling, most gifted, and most wished for product across the millions of items available on Amazon.com since launch. In the first quarter, 9 out of 10 of the top sellers on Amazon.com were digital products - Kindle, Kindle books, movies, music and apps.

Amazon launched Kindle Touch Wi-Fi and Kindle Touch 3G on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, and Amazon.es. The full line of Kindle e-ink readers is now available in over 175 countries around the world. Kindle Touch 3G is the most full-featured e-reader with an easy to use touchscreen and the unparalleled convenience of free 3G - no hunting for Wi-Fi spots, simply think of a book and download it. Kindle remains the bestseller on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it and Amazon.es since their launches.

Amazon introduced a new version of its popular Kindle for iPad app, which is the #5 free iPad app of all time and the #1 free books app on iPad. Millions of customers are using the new Kindle for iPad app, which is optimized for the high resolution display of the newest iPad.

Amazon announced an In-App Purchasing service, making it easy for Amazon Appstore developers to offer digital content and subscriptions for purchase within apps and games that are available on millions of Kindle Fires and other Android devices. Amazon Appstore's In-App Purchasing service is simple for developers to integrate and helps monetize their apps and games, while offering customers a seamless and secure 1-Click purchasing experience.

Amazon.com announced the launch of the Amazon Instant Video app for PlayStation 3 (PS3), making the PS3 system the first video game console system to offer Amazon Instant Video, and allowing PS3 users to stream Prime Instant Videos and rent or buy the latest movies and TV episodes directly from their PS3. Customers can also access Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video from Kindle Fire, Mac or PC, or on a TV using either a compatible connected device such as a Blu-ray player or a Roku or directly on compatible Smart TVs.

Amazon continued to expand its catalog of title offerings for Prime Instant Video, announcing licensing agreements with Discovery Communications and Viacom. Among the programs added are Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, TLC's Say Yes To The Dress and Animal Planet's Whale Wars, as well as thousands of TV episodes from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike, VH1, BET, CMT and Logo. These deals bring the total number of Prime Instant Videos to more than 17,000 movies and TV episodes from partners such as CBS, Fox, NBCUniversal, Sony, Warner Bros., PBS, Disney-ABC and many more.

North America segment sales, representing the Company's U.S. and Canadian sites, were $7.43 billion, up 36% from first quarter 2011.

Worldwide Electronics and Other General Merchandise sales grew 43% to $7.97 billion. Excluding the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 43%.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that Amazon DynamoDB - the fastest growing AWS service ever - is now available in both the EU (Ireland) and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Regions. Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides extremely fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability.

AWS lowered prices for the 19th time in five years by reducing reserved instance prices for Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS, as well as reducing on-demand pricing for Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, and Amazon ElastiCache.

AWS launched AWS Marketplace, an online store that makes it easy for customers to find, compare, and immediately start using the software and services they need to build software systems and products, and run their businesses. With AWS Marketplace, software and SaaS providers with offerings that run in the AWS Cloud can benefit from increased awareness, simplified deployment, and automated billing. AWS Marketplace brings the same simple, trusted, and secure online shopping experience that customers enjoy on Amazon.com to software built for the AWS platform, streamlining the process of doing research and purchasing software.

Financial Guidance

The following forward-looking statements reflect Amazon.com's expectations as of April 26, 2012, and exclude financial results of the Kiva Systems, Inc. acquisition which we expect to close in second quarter 2012. Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic conditions and consumer spending, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet and online commerce and the various factors detailed below.

Second Quarter 2012 Guidance

Net sales are expected to be between $11.9 billion and $13.3 billion, or to grow between 20% and 34% compared with second quarter 2011. Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(260) million and $40 million, or between 229% decline and 80% decline compared with second quarter 2011. This guidance includes approximately $260 million for stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets, and it assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions or investments are concluded and that there are no further revisions to stock-based compensation estimates.

A conference call will be webcast live today at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET, and will be available for at least three months at www.amazon.com/ir. This call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the Company's financial and operating results.

by: Ric

Amazing growth based on actual sales...what a concept!! Amazon is led by a CEO with vision who is driving growth at incredible rates.

eBay could not generate this kind of growth even after they pushed sellers into including shipping costs into the selling price in order to artificially inflate their GMV.

eBay mimics Amazon more and more with every round of changes yet can not invigorate their market place. This is primarily because they constantly they treat sellers like something that needs to be scraped off the bottom of ones shoe. Many of the sellers JD has disenfranchised have migrated to Amazon and are contributing to Amazon's growth.

If eBay had chosen a path that distinguished itself from other venues such as Amazon instead of trying to mimic them, eBay would be experiencing better growth.

What John Donahoe fails to recognize is that Amazon is not growing because their merchandise is presented in a sterile catalog, Amazon is succeeding because positive word of mouth is driving traffic to their site.

The only positive word of mouth about eBay these days comes from their own public relations releases, not from buyers and certainly not from sellers who John Donahoe considers little more than noise.

Amazon is going to continue to show significant growth because their CEO has vision and a workable plan.

eBay will fail to see comparable growth rates until the current CEO is gone and replaced with someone who appreciates that sellers are much more than noise.

OK Amazon's sales are up a lot.But how much were they without Kindle?That is the important number.I could not see it.

Over at ebay JD must be barfing as he reads that Amazon is the most popular site for online purchases.

Amazon Sales up 34 Percent in First Quarter 2012

by: Ming the Merciless

Fri Apr 27 18:19:50 2012

Nothing to see here, John. Move on.

Amazon Sales up 34 Percent in First Quarter 2012

by: Donkey

Sat Apr 28 09:27:44 2012

They are going to see a 100% growth when ebay implements their new changes.

Ebay wants one day handling, tracking on about everything even $1 items and if you don't-you lose your 20% discount top rated idiot status.

By the way in your spare time, ebay wants you to re-scan all your items to meet their requirements even though your scans are just fine.Enough is enough ebay. This time it is way to much.

Ebay buyers would like to have everything for free. Are you going to require sellers list it all for free in your next update?How can ebay be so clueless.

Amazon Sales up 34 Percent in First Quarter 2012

by: 10 year seller

Sat Apr 28 10:36:58 2012

Are third party units individual non amazon owned products?

Amazon Sales up 34 Percent in First Quarter 2012

by: Patricia

Sun Apr 29 12:01:17 2012

I did all my holiday shopping with Amazon....including all the parts for my super new computer and a 42" flatscreen TV. I'm very pleased with everything I bought and with the service I got from the small sellers on up to Amazon itself.

Amazon Sales up 34 Percent in First Quarter 2012

by: used2luv2sell

Sun Apr 29 13:39:32 2012

Just wanted to mention that my hubby bought $600 worth of car parts - NOT on Ebay - and had to pay $80 in SHIPPING COSTS! JD it wasn't free and as a buyer he didn't call and demand that it be shipped free either, because we know sellers have to pay postage or the package doesn't get delivered. Where do you get your information?

Amazon Sales up 34 Percent in First Quarter 2012

by: pace306

Mon Apr 30 07:15:20 2012

Amazon sales are up simply because Amazon does most things right. PERIOD.

Amazon doesnt VERO people until they leave, FBA works amazingly well, Amazon CS are generally fair, Amazon CS are knowledgeble, Amazon doesnt force people to do free shipping, use thier Frankenstien step company for payments, release funds when goods are shipped (tracking# provided) etc

eBay goes out of its way to continually hurt thier sellers. eBay, when it can do something right, chooses NOT to. eBay is the only company in the world that states in printed articles that they are only interested in helping a certain segment of thier sellers and they actively choose to ignore others.

Amazon is by no means perfect, but its light years ahead of eBay.Almost any seller with hard work can make it to ''the buy box'' !

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